SHIELD OF THE PEOPLE and the rest of the year

Hello, Friends!  SHIELD OF THE PEOPLE is out! I am very excited.  Some review quotes:

"I love seing good-hearted characters who keep true to their moral centers even in a gritty world. Shield of the People is wonderfully emotionally complex while also barreling through fantastically-paced action. Highly recommend!"  -- Cass Morris, author of From Unseen Fire

"A series of violent rebel threats on the elections and the twisty machinations of both the Tarian Order and the Open Hand ensure enough action and intrigue for any fan of fantasy adventure. Series readers will delight in returning to the rich universe of Maradaine." - Publishers Weekly

"It has the top-notch characterisation and complex, believable world we’ve come to know and love, backed up by a strongly realised and compelling narrative. Go get it – you won’t regret it." - SF&F Reviews

I'm thrilled that this latest Maradaine adventure is hitting the world.  And next year, we'll have The Fenmere Job (Asti and Verci Rynax cross paths with the Thorn!) and People of the City (Dayne and Jerinne with the Thorn, Minox & Satrine, Asti & Verci!  Full madness).  Both of these books I am really proud of, and I hope it all lives up to the prediction in this review that Maradaine deserves serious consideration for the Best Series Hugo Award.

This weekend!  I will be at World Fantasy Con.  My schedule is here.  Come say hello.
After this, I'm switching gears and hunkering down to write Velocity of Revolution, my dieselpunk motorcycles-and-insurrections novel in a latin-influenced secondary world. Very excited to get underway on this.

I hope, as always, to have more news to share soon.  I know I've been radio silent on this channel, but largely because of how busy things have been.  Back into the word mines for me.  Later.

Juggling Cats and Chainsaws

Folks, it has been a TIME for me the past few months.  In good ways, with the Good Kind of Busy, but still: A TIME.  And a big part of that is the cat-and-chainsaw juggling that is finishing the draft of PEOPLE OF THE CITY, where I have several plot threads from four different series converging and paying off, and that has been a huge thing, let me tell you.

I'm honestly so glad I'm using Scrivener for this.

One of the things that I LOVE about Scrivener is how painless it is to move scenes around. When you're juggling a bunch of converging plot lines it can be VERY helpful to try different orders of scenes for maximum impact.  Like, you plot it out in outline, figuring out all the What that needs to happen.  But then once it's written, and you've got a sense of the scenes, how they each rise and fall, the lengths of each one, the rhythm of the chapters, it's fun to play with how that works.  Do you group three disaster scenes together, so things fall-fall-fall in each bit through the chapter?  Or push the disaster of one plot line to the next chapter while bringing in the hope from another: fall-rise-fall. Which one is the best end-of-chapter kick?

Plus I can see the word count of each scene, each chapter, and get a sense of how shuffling the scenes around affects the pacing, keywords to show me which characters and threads I'm moving, how each plot thread is moving forward.

I can't imagine writing a novel like the one PEOPLE OF THE CITY is shaping into without these tools.  SO VERY HAPPY.

In other news: SHIELD OF THE PEOPLE comes out this month.  AND I'll be at New York Comic Con this weekend and World Fantasy Con next month.  So things are not slowing down.  Say hello if you can.  Wish me luck.